Whales and Seals

It was Todd's first trip to New Zealand. One of us, I forget whom, had won two free tickets on Air New Zealand, the national carrier of a country I'm quite familiar with, and we made arrangements to go for a couple of weeks. On the flight down I was thoroughly humbled by a grandmother from England who traveled two hours to London's Heathrow Airport, flown 12 hours to Los Angeles, was my seatmate for the 12 hour flight to Auckland from whence, following a healthy layover, she had another three hour flight to Brisbane. All for the sake of seeing her first grandchild. I kept my agonizing to a minimum.

Following some time in Auckland we made our way south to Christchurch to visit with friends and to hopefully experience real whale watching for the first time in either of our lives. I'd done some research before flying down about expeditions launching from the small coastal town of Kaikoura and had set all the arrangements for the 2nd day of our arrival on the South Island. Of the three tours scheduled between early morning and high noon we were booked on the 2nd starting at around 10:30 the following morning.

We picked our way to NZ#1, the two-lane national highway leading north along the eastern coastline to Kaikoura, paying attention to every road sign since every road looked the same as well as the British Commonwealth driving on the opposite side of both car and highway. Despite being tired from an evening with friends and the early hour upon us there was time aplenty to notice the bucolic beauty of rural New Zealand, something to that point I had never experienced in this part of the country. Farms, sheep of course, short trees, fruit groves and all of it covered in thick carpets of green. In a country of only four million confined to two middling sized islands (the North Island could fit in Ohio) they were thankfully blessed with not needing a lot of space along with the fact that much of it is quite mountainous and rugged, limiting any desire to create a lot of sprawl from the start.

Large pods of bachelor sperm whales gather off the coast of Kaikoura on the northeast side of the South Island. They gather here as they wait to mature and grow large enough to compete for females but also because one of their favorite foods, the giant squid, is known to collect here in great quantities as well. Diving up to a mile deep for their prize, when they surface the sight is nothing short of spectacular, blowing huge plumes of spray as they seek to replenish sorely depleted oxygen reserves. These brutes average 40-45 feet in length and are the largest toothed-whales in the world. The deep waters of Kaikoura are not always tame, either. These are active, deep Pacific waters with no reefs or shoals to tame the seas.

Three hours of driving and we had arrived. Kaikoura would be right at home as a one-horse town somewhere in Wyoming. Not much to look at, one road through town to the rest of civilization and one angry, roaring ocean just off the right shoulder. We hadn't noticed the storm clouds getting thicker the closer we drew to our destination. Unlucky us, they came together with a vengeance right off the coast but having come all this way we refused to let the weather tell us our tour was in jeopardy.

The sign in the window of the tour offices did that instead. All whales had either gone deep or further out to sea to escape the boiling cauldron nearer to shore. With up to a 10-foot chop at the surface there was nothing to see and nothing worth the risk in trying. Sorry, thanks, come back another day. As with most tourists there wasn't "another day" built in to our timeline. Asking about other activities in the area we were advised of a seal colony a few miles south where one lone seal steadfastly snoozed on the rocks while the others also absconded to better climes and locales.

Three hours' drive and some eight thousand miles from home for one stinkin' seal? Nice!

Gotta go.

Not Enough Land...

"So, Ma," I asked. "What do you think of Hawaii?" It was 2005 and we had arrived only the day before for an unplanned stop over on the way back from Japan. There was some time left in our vacation with my aunt and cousin so the three of us decided to visit Hawaii for one last hurrah before heading home. The aunt and cousin had never been to Hawaii before, indeed, they'd never been to any of the places we visited on this trip, and Mom had not returned to the 50th state in over 30 years so we figured why not? Today found us on the North Shore facing the massive expanse of the Central Pacific from a high overview.

"Not enough land for all that water" was her now famous reply. Charged with a heady mixture of absolute fear of open water along with memories of the tsunami reports coming from Bali in 2004 Mom saw very little in the way of scenic beauty. While not visibly shaking in her shoes she gamely went along with us for the ride around the island fighting to keep an eye on the road and the water at the same time.

We weren't there in time for the famous "Big Wave" season when surfers the world over arrive to tackle seasonal waves coming from as far as Japan and culminating in monster waves up to 20 or more feet high. That was a good thing if for no other reason than traffic was non-existent, no more than the usual island trade plus a few other curious tourists who chose to venture beyond the pineapple plantations in the center of the island. For me it was a first because I had never completely circumnavigated an entire island before and it gave me a first real perspective on the size of Oahu, 2nd largest in the chain, compared to the largest body of water on the planet. Maybe Mom was stating the truth after all.

We chose a random beach to pull over and get out of the car for a little while where three of us lit out for the water as soon as we could get our shoes off. There was no tide, the surf almost non-existent - for that side of Hawaii, anyway - and the air and water cool, blue and inviting. My aunt could barely contain her glee as she hopped in and out of the water, recalling one good story after another of her days as a young girl in South America. My cousin was pleased to simply stroll in the waves as they lapped over the sands while I made as big a splash as someone my size would be expected to make. That's when the screaming started.

"Come out of that water!" Over and over again Mother implored us all to leave the waves which in her opinion were far too high and strong. "You gonna get pulled out to sea! Y'all get outta the water!" One wave had indeed snuck up behind auntie and flattened her on the beach. When she reappeared in the froth, hair all off on one side, salt and sand in everything else, she was howling with laughter, free of the cares of the world once more.

"I give up," Mom declared. "Y'all drown if you want to, I can't watch. I'm going to the car." One and all made it home just fine.

Gotta go.

Holy Thunderheads

It was one of those gorgeously frightening October days in North Texas when the skies open up and change colors from slate gray to onyx black and indigo blue with the crackling roar of each bolt of lightning. These are the legendary storms that can travel faster than traffic, rising up from nothing, leaving complete chaos and devastation behind and subsiding to nothing again with equal speed. One hour of amazing atmospheric activity can throw off an entire day's operations at Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport, my home field, and on this October day that is exactly what happened.

I was booked on Lufthansa this day for my first trip to the Holy Land of Israel, connecting in Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. Where Lufthansa is synonymous with clockwork dependability, however, October thunderstorms in North Texas keep the famously punctual German carrier quite humble indeed. Today diversions were the order or, in the case of my flight, a delayed arrival from its point of origin in Houston by some four hours. When boarding for Frankfurt was finally called, though, I was not even close to being panicked. I'd been through the fortress hub of Lufthansa before and knew that there would be alternate flights later in the day. My biggest concern was in meeting up with friends in Israel who had left the day before.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt my faith was confirmed but tested like few other trips before at the same time. There were indeed later flights but the next one from Frankfurt was a red-eye which was oversold. If I could make it to Munich, however, the gate agent informed me that their flight from that airport the following morning had plenty of room. Let the adventure begin!

Collecting my luggage I was really enjoying a disruption that would have evoked heated letters and guaranteed hours on the couch for other travelers in the same situation. They'd given me options, I was on "home turf" in Germany, having lived there many years and well knew how to use and rely upon "The DB," or Deutsche Bundesbahn, the national train system. I wasn't used to the then new Munich Airport, however, as I'd never flown from even the old one before. I didn't even know where it was in relation to the city or the main train station downtown!

Didn't need to know and I knew it; this is Germany. A new airport is rare - there hasn't been a completely new field built since - but I knew they wouldn't undertake such a project without linking it to the existing public transit system. A few questions in the right ears and I was on my way via light rail to the new "Franz Josef Strauss" Airport about 18 miles northeast of the city. My chariot to Israel awaited in the bright morning sunshine after a chilly evening waiting for the counters to open.

Hardly was there a faster flight than the three hour service I slept through on the way to Tel Aviv. My friends were miraculously waiting for me outside of customs, concerned that I hadn't arrived the day before but equally pleased to finally see me so we could start our vacation in this wondrous and ancient land.

I'll tell you about the flight home later; it was more of the same!

Gotta go.

Cloudy Beauty

We've all been there. The winter overcast that just hangs in the sky, blotting out the sun and hovering barely over the rooftops, sometimes just lying there and sometimes swirling and churning with the promise of some kind of deluge, be it ice, rain, snow or a combination of all three. "The Gray Days" they are sometimes called, adding to the misery and depression of an already ugly day. Oh woe are we bemoan the multitudes, when will it ever end? Is there no beauty left in the world, we ask, as we trundle to work listening to traffic reports and ever more worrisome noise from the stock markets.

What a fantastic day for flying! There are simply very few sensations most people can experience that bring a feeling of escape, a rush of breaking free and a true aura of getting away than breaking through a layer of clouds on "climb-out" from the airport. The rush from racing down the runway, the tickle in the stomach at lift off, the mystery of what lies above and beyond the clouds and, finally, the burst in to pure sunlight, blue sky all around and the endless horizon all add up to an uplifting thrill ride, something out of seemingly nothing in the everyday routine of going from A to B.

I can't remember when it was but seeing my first airplane soaring through the air was a life-changing event for me. Actually flying for the first time nailed the love of flying home and breaking through the clouds has always been the signature moment of the entire experience. It says beyond a shadow of a doubt that there has been a change from the familiarity of being on the ground to the alien, potentially hostile yet stunningly beautiful world of the sky. We are visitors to this place for only a little while, the length of that flight and no more. Enjoy it while you can.

Of course, an monotonous stretch of clouds from beginning to end can be about as thrilling as two weeks of open ocean with no ports of call to break up the routine. There is nothing good about flying over the Alps, knowing that they are right below you but covered in that once thrilling and now obstructive layer of clouds. Stars in the night sky, holiday fireworks or the urban lights of a major city are also fun things to see but that also means that once the big breakthrough has occurred the clouds that said you have slipped the surly bonds of earth will be left behind with each additional foot of altitude and increase in speed.

Taking off from San Francisco and heading out over the Pacific probably offers the best combination of all of these things. On a perpetually foggy morning and flying in something the size of a 747, there is the dramatic take-off over Highway 101, entering the cloud layer above Colma and South City before the breakout to the west of Twin Peaks with the Transamerica Tower, Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge exquisitely framed by parting clouds as the coastline recedes ever smaller in to the distance. Bali high!

None of this really matters, naturally, if you are the kind that prefers an aisle seat.

Gotta go.

De-Ice in De-Winter

Christmas Eve and my flight ended up being an hour an a half late but hey, it wasn’t among the number of cancellations suffered at DFW because of snow. Yes, snow. Not the blizzard conditions of the East Coast or Upper Midwest mind you but the Texas kind of snow that means you can see it, it’s real but it’s really just enough to surprise some, annoy everyone else and disrupt air travel on the 2nd busiest holiday of the year.

My American Airlines flight wasn’t completely full and actually boarded on time; it was the “car wash” that held us up, something I was mentally prepared for. The “car wash” is the de-icing station, one of several set up at the far corners of the airport, to clean off any ice and snow from the airplane so it can take-off safely. “De-icing” is something of a misnomer in the technical sense of the procedure as it is really a two-part process involving both de-icing and anti-icing. De-icing first…

One thing that is obvious about snow is that it is heavy but it is not always obvious to most observers who see it piled up on to airplanes that the extra weight is not part of their take-off preparations. Every bit of snow has to come off the airplane so the pilots can see and the plane will weigh exactly as much as the planners expect it to for safe flight. Equally critical is to eliminate snow and ice build-up on the wings and “control surfaces,” the flaps and other moving parts of the wing and tail that affect movement. Not only the surfaces but also down in between the hinges and creases where frozen “precipitation” has been known to jam the controls in dangerous and deadly ways.

Extremely hot water is mixed with chemicals similar to industrial strength windshield fluid used in cars to “wash” the fuselage, wings, control surfaces and around the windows of the airplane. Workers are careful always to never spray directly in to air intake valves as the odor and smoke can cause discomfort to those inside the plane. Once the plane is considered “clean,” the second part of the treatment begins, the anti-icing.

More hot water is mixed with an even thicker solution of chemicals which some have likened to the consistency of a good Italian salad dressing. Either green or orange in color, this is applied typically only to the wings and tail control surfaces of the plane to prevent any snow or ice re-accumulation. It is also intended to remain on the plane just long enough to get to the runway and in to the air. As the plane builds up speed the solution is designed to simply peel off and leave a completely clean wing surface exposed to the air for normal flight.

In winter conditions airports and airlines know how long they have between the car wash and the runway before their application window of opportunity times out. In other words, if they send the flight to be de-iced too early, the chemicals only prevent snow and ice for so long; exceed that time window and the flight will have to go back for another wash. For this reason flights leave the gate only with a reasonable assurance of getting through the car wash and straight to the runway in as little time as possible.

Each wash, depending on the size of the plane can take from 15 to 30 minutes to complete. My flight was third in line for the procedure and then third in line again for the only runway being used for take-offs that evening from DFW, “31-Left” the northwest crosswind, a strip used 99% of the time for southbound inbound landings only. Once lined up the pilot set the brakes, opened up to full throttle and in only 22 seconds our MD-80 lifted off over the Southlake suburbs before tracking northeast and back home to Baltimore for Christmas.

We thought of the cancelled flights to Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and smaller cities in Texas and considered ourselves both lucky and thankful to be an hour and a half late but still home in time for the holidays.

Gotta go.